Miko in the Crowd
by Warbling Wallaby
Summary: Kagome was a normal, fun-loving teenager girl… or so she thought. Her world turns upside down when one day, she finds out something about herself that could get her killed if the secret leaked out. Too bad her first day at Tsujitani High was the next da


A/N: AHHHHHH! Sorry… it's been what, a **year** since I've updated this fic? Maybe even two huh… but I've been trying to revise the **entire** thing, so I hope you guys like this better than the old one, which really sucked by the way. I can't believe you people still supported me after I posted something that bad on the site. I'm not promising to make regular posts though, even if I'm putting this up, but maybe I will if reviews start coming in. So give me effective criticism!

Miko in the Crowd

By Dubble W

This was the life… with nothing to worry me, being able to relax on a Saturday night in bed, just lazing around.

I put a spoonful of mango ice cream in my mouth and closed my eyes for a moment, savoring the taste, slowly sliding the spoon out of my mouth and placing it back in the bowl. And the best part about it was that it was low fat.

With my eyes still closed, I fiddled around with a little trinket around my neck: a little, dusty-rose colored sphere filled with a dull, small, white light. It wasn't really a trinket really… it was more like a necklace to me. Ever since my earliest memories, I always had to wear it. My mother told me that I should never take it off, not even when I was sleeping or taking a bath. Once I disobeyed and tried to take it off, and my mother, Yume, got extremely angry when she caught me with my little hands gripping the necklace, about to take it off from my neck. On that day, she told me if I ever took the necklace off, I would be in **big** trouble, and she made me swear never to take it off until she said so.

Opening my eyes, I reached for the new book that just came out from Meg Cabot. It was book number six in the Mediator Series, and I've been dying to read this book since I finished the fifth book Haunted.

Apprehensively, I opened the book gingerly and–

A middle-aged woman burst into the room looking as if she had run a marathon. Startled, my head snapped up, and my book fell from my hands, forgotten. What was her problem? She could have at least knocked before scaring the hell outta me. But judging from the angry expression on her face, maybe she already did. And I just didn't hear her. Oops…

The impatient woman made a few quick gestures that I couldn't understand and stomped her foot. I had a wild urge to laugh. Yume stomping her foot? Do mothers even stomp their feet?

Jerking me out of my thoughts, Yume yanked the headphones off my head and pushed the stop button on my CD player.

"Kagome! Do you know how **long** I stood in front of your door **yelling** to see if you were in there?!" Yume stood in front of me with her hands on her hips.

Come to think of it, she did sound hoarse.

"I was listening to music," I said apologetically.

Giving me a small glare, Yume gave an exasperated snort that indicated she was annoyed.

Just looking at her got me wondering if I really was related to her. People have always commented that we look almost nothing alike. My long, midnight-black hair reached up to my mid-back while her dark-brown hair streaked with bits of white and gray was cropped up to her ears. Her blue eyes shone clearly from her tanned skin whereas my dark brown eyes stood out of my pale skin. At Yume's height of five feet seven, I was constantly looking up to her from a distance of four inches down with a kink in my neck, but luckily, the doctor says I still have a few more years of growth. The only thing we share in common was that we practically have the same build: slender, but not too scrawny.

Sometimes I wonder about my father, and if I inherited my looks from him since it was obvious Yume didn't dip into my gene pool too much. I asked about him once when I was younger, but Yume just shook her head sadly, aging ten years right before my eyes. She retired to her room immediately after that, but she was back to her usual self the next day. I've never asked about anything relating to my father after that day, although I was tempted to many times.

During my long thinking process, Yume had already calmed down and had seated herself on my bed. She started to examine the quilt on my bed, tracing its pattern over and over again. A sure sign that she had something important to tell me but didn't want to say anything right away.

So I helped her. "What'd you want Mom?" I asked quietly, putting aside my book and CD player regretfully. Can't have any distractions…

I examined Yume as she stayed silent. It seemed like she was having an inner struggle and was trying to grasp the right words to say. I didn't see what the problem was, I really didn't. If she had something to tell me, she should just say it. She never had this much trouble before, so does that mean… could it mean that she was going to finally tell me something about my father? That question made me sit up straighter in bed and lean towards Yume in apprehension of her next words.

"I'm a miko," she said finally, taking the blunt way out but still staring down at the quilt on my bed.

Instantaneously, I jerked back away from her. My eyes widened, and one of my hands clenched the blankets as my other hand unconsciously flew to my necklace. Funny how in times of extreme emotion I always go to that necklace of mine.

A miko. The word echoed around my brain. My mother was a miko.

Being a miko is like the equivalent of being a witch. Only not the nice kinds.

The miko, or priestesses, used be honorable and generous though, helping for the good of all and all that stuff, but they were extremely powerful. And as you know, when people have too much power, they tend to get corrupted, which was exactly what happened with the priestesses. They started to argue with each other, bickering about who was the most powerful. One of them actually rose to the top, and she was so power-hungry that she tried to gain power over the entire world. Yes, I know it sounds cheesy, but that's what power does to good people… or miko in this case.

This particular priestess promised power to other miko to lure them into helping her with her plans. They went along with her in their greed and wrecked havoc upon everything. They were vicious and cruel and spared nothing that got in their way.

But as usual, there is an ending every story. After two years of their atrocious behavior, they were defeated by a band of rebels made up of youkai, hanyou, and humans who were pissed off with the priestesses. And by pissed off, I mean anger that can easily overcome a parent's reaction that their child had failed all six of their courses that he or she was taking that year. Frightening? Yeah, I thought so.

So the rebel group defeated the miko and destroyed all of them. End of story… at least so I thought. That story happened about two decades ago, and if any miko was found to be alive, no one would hesitant to drown her or burn her alive.

The world seemed to be spinning as I made a connection. Miko blood passes through females of the family. Yume was a miko, so that makes me…?

I refused to think of it. She was joking. She had to be. There was no other explanation. I relaxed slightly after my deduction and forced a laugh that sounded fake even to my own ears.

"Very funny Mom," I said with a strained voice, looking up at the ceiling. "What did you really want to tell me?"

Yume sighed, her eyes drawing to my face, compelling me to look at her saddened eyes. "I'm sorry Kagome. I really am. I shouldn't have put that so bluntly, but I didn't know how else to approach the subject. But I'm absolutely serious. Have you ever known me to joke around with something this important?"

"Yes," I replied stubbornly, looking away from her eyes. "Remember the time where I was five and you said there were monsters that would eat me up if I didn't go to bed at exactly eight at night? That was some pretty traumatizing stuff to a five-year-old… even if you were joking. I didn't even realize that was a joke until I stayed up until nine when I was seven without even realizing it and discovered that no bloodthirsty monster came to eat me. And-

"Why didn't you tell me?" I burst out suddenly, the words pushing out of my mouth before I could even think it through. "I can't believe it! I'm **sixteen** already! You couldn't have told me this sooner? I've learned all my life that priestesses were horrible, homicidal women who enjoyed torturing their prisoners as much as they love power, and you never thought to tell me that I could possibly be one of those women?"

Yume stiffened. "You will never be one of those women," she snapped in defense, "and I'm not like that either."

"Why didn't you tell me then?!"

Yume shifted uncomfortably on my bed. "Well, at first I told myself that I would tell you on your thirteenth birthday, but then when the time came, I thought you were too young so I pushed the secret to your fourteenth birthday. And when your fourteenth birthday came, I began to have doubts if you were old enough, so told myself that I would tell you on your fifteenth birthday, and then - well, you get the point. And I never did anything that would give me away as a miko in case you might tell someone." Geez Mom… glad to see the vote of confidence in me. I feel so heartened.

"In case you're wondering," she continued, "you haven't done anything miko-like because priestesses don't receive their powers until they get to be sixteen and a half, and even then it's a gradual process of building it up slowly."

Sixteen… and a half? My eyebrows rose as my hand tightened against the little sphere in my grip. I turn sixteen and a half tomorrow… which coincidentally was also my first day at Tsujitani High as a junior since we just moved into town a couple of days ago. I was counting on having a great time in school, meeting new friends, but I'm guessing being the only miko in the school wouldn't be too great of a first impression on people. It would be more of an invitation for people to mob me. So does that mean I have to stay away from people to prevent them from finding out?

I groaned inwardly. I can see it now. Kagome Higurashi, the school loner and social reject. Needless to say, there wasn't a nice ring to it.

Yume caught the expression on my face and hurriedly added, "Don't worry. You don't get your miko powers right away. You get a little of it day by day so they can be controlled over the process of time."

"I can't believe this," I grumbled. "This is too much. I think I'm still in shock. If I'm still in shock tomorrow, do I still have to go to school?" In truth, the shock was starting to wear off, and I began to realize that I would have to deal with it because I can't change anything about it. Miko might have been terrible in the past, but looking at Yume, I knew they couldn't be all that bad. Maybe some of the priestesses weren't corrupted with greed.

Yume gave me a slight grin, relieved that the tension had ceased. "Of course you still have to go to school. But I'm going to make it so that you look like a youkai to avoid any suspicion. I know the belief that miko are still alive have died down, but it wouldn't hurt to be extra careful."

The belief that miko are still alive have died down? More like extinguished altogether. **Everyone** believed that they have all been killed. So why was Yume still here?

When I asked her that question, Yume just gave me a calculating look, pressing her lips firmly together and said that she'll tell me when I'm older.

"When I get older?" I protested, rolling my eyes. "When will that be? When I'm fifty?" Don't you just hate it when adults think that they always know best for you and when they think you're never old enough to know anything. I mean, goodness, I'm sixteen already. You'd think that'd be good enough.

Yume chose to ignore me as she always does when she thinks I'm being too childish. "There was something else I was going to tell you that I forgot." She looked around my room in thought, and her gaze roamed until her eyes landed on my neck and slid down to my necklace. "Oh," she said in a startled tone that people usually have when they remember something. "Oh yeah. Keep your necklace tucked underneath your shirt at all times in school."

"This?" I asked, holding up the sphere even thought I knew what she meant.

She nodded. "And don't even think about asking me questions about it," she said sharply when she saw my mouth open. She knows me too well.

Glancing briefly at the clock on my bedside table, she got up. "It's getting late Kagome, so I'd better go so you could get a good nights sleep in order to get up in the morning for school." After a moment, she grinned and added, "Even though I know no matter how early you sleep, you can never get up early."

Well, like I always say, the early worm gets eaten by the bird, but I didn't tell Yume that since I knew she would only laugh at me. So I settled with a nod as she hugged me and left, closing my bedroom door quietly behind her.

As that door closed, the reality of everything hit my in the face. A miko. I was a miko. Who would have thought. Me, Kagome Higurashi, a normal sixteen-year-old. Goes to show that you can't expect everything life is going to throw at you.

I was mildly nervous, but excited at the same time about going to high school before I knew anything about being a priestess. And now? Now I'm terrified.

Wonderful…

A/N: And there you go…


End file.
